Deep River, CT — STRUNK ConneCT GmbH & Co. KG (Kirchen-Freusburg, Germany), which has been a partner to the automotive and electric industries throughout Europe since 1972, has established a subsidiary in the USA to serve the needs of American manufacturers. Electronics industry veteran Heinz Bockard, the new managing director of newly established STRUNK Connect Automation Solutions Inc., says the company will apply the experience and knowhow of more than 37 years of process engineering to find the application technology that will provide the best possible support and service for customer applications in the medical, solar power and automotive industries.

Bockard points out that the core competence of the predecessor company, STRUNK Welding Systems, has been resistance welding technology ever since the firm was founded in 1972 by Helmut Strunk to build welding machines and accessories. In 1980 the company began producing measuring devices for resistance and arc welding, and developed the first data recording system for welding quality, which was a worldwide breakthrough in the automotive industry. In 1986 STRUNK began building customer-specific resistance welding machines for nonferrous metals, including the necessary control and inverter supply technology, which it continuously developed further according to automotive and medical standards, and still produces today. The first automation applications were undertaken in 1996, leading to the development of handling robots with up to 6 mobile axes. STRUNK Welding Systems was taken over in 2009 by Olaf Strunk, who then founded STRUNK ConneCT GmbH & CoKG.

Connection TechnologiesBuilding on that core competence of connection technologies, Bockard says STRUNK Connect Automation Solutions offers stand-alone and fully automated machines for resistance welding and assembly. These machines weld both solid and stranded wire, from 0.04 to 0.5-in. in diameter, at rates up to 800 parts per minute with special cam-driven heads. The connections are homogeneous and inseparable, with near-zero contact resistance and no aging of the welded connection. In addition to wire splicing, these machines can also compact stranded wire and weld terminals to both solid and stranded wire. For joining nonferrous metal parts, the firm offers Nd:YAG, Ytterbium and CO2 laser welding machines. These machines include automatic connector feeding and can be equipped with stamping and bending processes as well.

The company also offers semiautomatic resistance brazing machines for joining parts with different melting temperatures, such as copper and brass, and parts of different thickness. The brazing metal filler increases the electrical resistance at the joint shortly before welding, so that the power needed to join the parts can be reduced. The joints have near-zero electrical resistance and are highly resistant to both shear and peel forces.

There are numerous control system and power supply options abound for all of the company's welding systems. PC-based control technology, which can be connected to the customer's network, provides precise control of welding voltage and current, time and welding force. Control systems also monitor current, charge, power, energy, tension, displacement of electrodes, and height both before and after welding, which are presented in dynamic upper and lower limits.

Storing Welding ParametersFor traceability and 100 percent quality control, particularly in automotive applications, control systems monitor and store all welding parameters statistically with both warning and action limits. Welded components can also be labeled with batch or serial numbers by laser or printer. Alternatively, a report with needed information can be generated.

The company's AK testing line has been introduced to automotive OEMs and meets their requirements for testing automotive connectors used with air bags, brakes, sensors and myriad other components. Mechanical tests include radial peel force and axial pull force, both with opened insulation crimp, as well as repeated mechanical shock. Electrical tests include transmission resistance, voltage drop and resistance to broad band noise interference. Environmental testing measures transmission resistance and voltage drop both before connections are subjected to an 8-hour salt fog spray and after a 16-hour delay for the salt fog to take effect. Environmental testing also measures the effects of stress induced by cyclic temperature change. After all testing cycles, the resistance-welded joints show no adverse impact on quality and consistency.

While STRUNK Connect Automation Solutions Inc. is a newcomer to the U.S. automation market, Bockard has been part of the U.S. automation scene since Pittler Machine Tools, his employer in Germany, sent him over in 1967. He then served as vice president of Schunk Automation Systems, the North American arm of the Schunk Group GmbH (Giessen, Germany). He subsequently bought the firm and changed the name to Global Automation, which was the North American agent for mta automation ag (Gals, Switzerland), and was recently purchased by mta.